Chicks Ahoy

Victoria's Secret's annual fashion show turns up the heat in Miami Beach

I'm no Angel. But one weekend last November, I got my wings. It happened at a Miami Beach doubleheader: the gala reopening of fabled Rat Pack hideaway the Fontainebleau (a $5 million party that capped off a $1 billion face-lift), plus Victoria's Secret's "Return to Glamour" fashion show. Friday night, wall-to-wall Diddys, Gwyneths, and Kate Hudsons bobbed to the vocal gymnastiques of Mariah Carey. Saturday, I headed backstage, straight into a nest of 35 buffed, glossed, titanium-abbed Perfect Specimens. Just as I was about to hurl my pale, pudgy, mere-mortal self off the nearest balcony, I spotted something worth living for: rack after rack of... accessories? Accoutrements? Whatever you call them, the showpieces (made to augment genuinely pretty, real-life-wearable undergarments designed by Janie Schaffer, the Brit who is rather fabulously making over the entire VS collection) are far more fetching, frankly, when they're not being overshadowed by some supermodel's superbody. Crafted under the über-cool eye of stylist Charlotte Stockdale to illustrate the show's six themes (think "Glamour Goddess" and "PINK Planet"), there were crystal breastplates—like curvilinear, supersize vintage brooches—by Aussie jeweler Jenny Mercian of Manik Mercian; gold-dipped plumes (with a warning sign: No touching. Feathers will oxidize!!) by artist Milo Mottola; and high-heel sneakers made somehow chic by the inimitable Pierre Hardy. And then there were the wings, built like 40- pound, posture-poking backpacks by prop designer Martin Izquierdo. His assistants strapped me into Heidi's spangly hot pink bow-shaped pair, and I still haven't come back down to earth.